Teaching has changed me.
I don't just mean in this socially conscious way. Going in front of a room full of students from some of the worst backgrounds in America makes you think and act differently.
Teaching has such a huge impact on you as person because the job is seemingly never-ending. It is in many ways a social position. I am a teacher at school. I am a teacher at home grading. I am a teacher at the grocery store where students work. I am a teacher when running and I get stopped by students. I am a teacher when parents call me when I am trying to cook dinner. I am a teacher every moment. I am thinking about teaching, planning to teach, reflecting on what I taught, or being reminded that I teach all the time. It sometimes gets to the point where I have to restrain myself from disciplining random teenagers I see at the store or the mall for having cell phones or talking too loudly.
Because of this intermingling of the job and your personhood, the issues of students become those of your own. Poverty goes from being this distant thing to close event as you witness it through the lives of students. After a while I got a little hardened to the little tragedies of everyday life. If I didn't get the slightest bit callous to their condition, I would have allowed them to use poverty as an excuse to fail. Everything they do, from the food they eat to the clothes on their back to the decisions that they make, is informed by that cycle of poverty.
One of the most striking aspects of teaching is the impact it has had on my personality. The big change is the decline of the "nice guy" persona. I am not afraid to say "no to anyone if I am confident in my decision. That has led to a more productively (for the most part) confrontational attitude.
I don't take nearly as much crap from people as I did in August. The aspect that fueled this change is the fact that students and administrators perceive niceness as weakness. Don't even get me started on how foreign and idiotic that is to me. Niceness was the key difficulty I had in dealing with people. I had to kill that perception by being consistently vigilant in my views (and smiling while doing it). Late work is late work. Bad work is bad work. Dumb policy is dumb policy. If it served a productive purpose to say the truth (often not the case with my administration), I started saying it.
I find myself becoming far more confident of myself as a person. I don't care if my belt is out of a loop or if I speak oddly. I have been tested as a person for so long by so many people that I no longer cared what they thought about me. I know who I am.
Teaching is the hardest job I could imagine having. It has cost me time, energy, and mental stability. It probably has taken a little time off my life. It also offers a few moments of immense rewards. If it doesn't change you, there is a problem. Hopefully you change for the better.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
The State Test
A big, big bunch of you future MTC teachers out there should get used to the following four words: Subject Area Testing Program. If you are doomed to have those words associated with your preps, they will make you a life a little more challenging. It seems that for some reason that new teachers, especially the MTC variety of new teachers, have a high likelihood of being placed in one of the state tested subjects: Algebra I, Biology I, English II, and US History from 1877 to Present. It is likely some combination of the following factors:
1) Nobody wants to teach them
2) It is easier to blame an outsider if things don't work out
3) You will be one of the most competent teachers at your school
The results of the test are used to rank the school. Most of the schools that you will be at suck on some level (or else they wouldn't need you). For that reason you will be under immense pressure to raise scores quickly.
Let me repeat.
THERE IS A LOT OF PRESSURE.
The pressure won't kill you. You just need to be prepared for it.
You will find your administration doing things that might seem to be unethical to people with a shred of integrity. For example, my school purged the rosters of SATP classes. Any students they thought would fail were moved to other classes until the next year. That is one of the many things that may or may not happen next year. In my view, it is best not to fight it.
I teach English II. I get leaned on all the time to achieve the "bold targets" (that would require us to triple our proficiency levels in one year) and to meet the "adequate yearly progress" goals of No Child Left Behind. For some reason I have to make up for over a decade of inadequate education in one year.
The biggest problem for me was the spotlight my administration put on me. I had a lot of developing to do as a teacher and it sucked to have people leaning on me all the time to generate results. The spotlight continually grows as the testing date draws near (only one week away). I increasingly lose my autonomy to teach as I desire as random people tell me what I should be doing at any given moment. My principal pulled me into a meeting two weeks ago and told my class to stop reading a novel because it wouldn't be on the test.
There is also some upside. I found that the SATP teachers get almost anything they need if it helps them raise scores. I have also found that with all the constant assessments and data mining that it is easier to see measurable improvement in your students (at least the ones who will do the work).
You can improve test scores if you do nothing other than getting the kids to answer all the questions and to actually try. If you teach them some grammar and what good writing looks like, you might be looking at some measurable gains. Just don't expect miracles to happen left and right. Progress is all that matters
As much as the testing regime bothers me, I guess I really haven't learned my lesson (or I might just like the challenge). I am changing from one SATP subject (English II) to another (US History from 1877 to Present) next year. I am excited.
If any of you all need some English II materials/strategies/prayers, I should have a ton.
1) Nobody wants to teach them
2) It is easier to blame an outsider if things don't work out
3) You will be one of the most competent teachers at your school
The results of the test are used to rank the school. Most of the schools that you will be at suck on some level (or else they wouldn't need you). For that reason you will be under immense pressure to raise scores quickly.
Let me repeat.
THERE IS A LOT OF PRESSURE.
The pressure won't kill you. You just need to be prepared for it.
You will find your administration doing things that might seem to be unethical to people with a shred of integrity. For example, my school purged the rosters of SATP classes. Any students they thought would fail were moved to other classes until the next year. That is one of the many things that may or may not happen next year. In my view, it is best not to fight it.
I teach English II. I get leaned on all the time to achieve the "bold targets" (that would require us to triple our proficiency levels in one year) and to meet the "adequate yearly progress" goals of No Child Left Behind. For some reason I have to make up for over a decade of inadequate education in one year.
The biggest problem for me was the spotlight my administration put on me. I had a lot of developing to do as a teacher and it sucked to have people leaning on me all the time to generate results. The spotlight continually grows as the testing date draws near (only one week away). I increasingly lose my autonomy to teach as I desire as random people tell me what I should be doing at any given moment. My principal pulled me into a meeting two weeks ago and told my class to stop reading a novel because it wouldn't be on the test.
There is also some upside. I found that the SATP teachers get almost anything they need if it helps them raise scores. I have also found that with all the constant assessments and data mining that it is easier to see measurable improvement in your students (at least the ones who will do the work).
You can improve test scores if you do nothing other than getting the kids to answer all the questions and to actually try. If you teach them some grammar and what good writing looks like, you might be looking at some measurable gains. Just don't expect miracles to happen left and right. Progress is all that matters
As much as the testing regime bothers me, I guess I really haven't learned my lesson (or I might just like the challenge). I am changing from one SATP subject (English II) to another (US History from 1877 to Present) next year. I am excited.
If any of you all need some English II materials/strategies/prayers, I should have a ton.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
What should I know about MTC before I arrive in June?
What should I know about MTC before I arrive in June?
That's a good question for the future first-years who read this thing.
Mississippi is a pretty interesting place.
I have to start off with the food. It is pretty amazing, especially for people like me who tend to ignore nutrition. You can have all the fried foods you want. Macaroni & cheese is a vegatable here. There is also the terribly disgusting foods. For some reason Kool-Aid pickles are prominent in my head. You will also have to get used to the presence of perhaps the most disgusting food in the world, "Flamin' Hot Cheetos". I swear that my students are in love with them despite my lectures and obvious dismay.
Mississippi is actually quite a beautiful place. There is a strange charm to the Delta that makes you want to stay for a while (since I don't live there). I have found that Jackson is surprisingly cosmopolitan if you look in the right corners. It's not quite New York (or even a New Orleans) but it is something.
There are going to be a lot of annoying people here. Ole Miss has a lot of those people. The kind of girls that put makeup on to go jogging and guys in polo shirts with awful hair. If I see one more "Southern Boy" haircut I am going to grab some scissors and cut off those bangs. Grown men should not have bangs.
More seriously, you can't talk about Mississippi without talking about race and by direct extension, poverty. It is surreal to what level race is the unspoken backdrop to conversations here. You will be working in some of the most segregated areas of the state. You will find that Jackson is surprisingly segregated. You will find that the Delta is more often than not, disgustingly segregated. The school districts become showcases for what happens when half of the community (the white half) doesn't support the schools and the other half (the black half) doesn't seem to know what to do.
On a more practical level here is some advice.
Enjoy your senior year of college (or whatever you are doing right now). It's fun on its own and you need to get rested up for the year. There is a good chance that once you step foot in Mississippi that you are not getting any significant amount of time off. Sorry. I graduated from college on Sunday afternoon and ended up in Oxford on Tuesday morning. After June and summer school came July and TEAM. After that last week, I had a week of district induction. Then school begins. Then somehow your body makes it to Thanksgiving Break. It is painful but that is life.
Don't stress out.
Repeat.
Don't stress out.
We (the future second-years and the MTC staff) will take care of you. We are going through the experience right now. We will give you any wisdom you need that happens to fall our way. We will give you any hugs and support you need. Things will be OK. Trust me. Now take your PRAXIS II and get away from the computer.
That's a good question for the future first-years who read this thing.
Mississippi is a pretty interesting place.
I have to start off with the food. It is pretty amazing, especially for people like me who tend to ignore nutrition. You can have all the fried foods you want. Macaroni & cheese is a vegatable here. There is also the terribly disgusting foods. For some reason Kool-Aid pickles are prominent in my head. You will also have to get used to the presence of perhaps the most disgusting food in the world, "Flamin' Hot Cheetos". I swear that my students are in love with them despite my lectures and obvious dismay.
Mississippi is actually quite a beautiful place. There is a strange charm to the Delta that makes you want to stay for a while (since I don't live there). I have found that Jackson is surprisingly cosmopolitan if you look in the right corners. It's not quite New York (or even a New Orleans) but it is something.
There are going to be a lot of annoying people here. Ole Miss has a lot of those people. The kind of girls that put makeup on to go jogging and guys in polo shirts with awful hair. If I see one more "Southern Boy" haircut I am going to grab some scissors and cut off those bangs. Grown men should not have bangs.
More seriously, you can't talk about Mississippi without talking about race and by direct extension, poverty. It is surreal to what level race is the unspoken backdrop to conversations here. You will be working in some of the most segregated areas of the state. You will find that Jackson is surprisingly segregated. You will find that the Delta is more often than not, disgustingly segregated. The school districts become showcases for what happens when half of the community (the white half) doesn't support the schools and the other half (the black half) doesn't seem to know what to do.
On a more practical level here is some advice.
Enjoy your senior year of college (or whatever you are doing right now). It's fun on its own and you need to get rested up for the year. There is a good chance that once you step foot in Mississippi that you are not getting any significant amount of time off. Sorry. I graduated from college on Sunday afternoon and ended up in Oxford on Tuesday morning. After June and summer school came July and TEAM. After that last week, I had a week of district induction. Then school begins. Then somehow your body makes it to Thanksgiving Break. It is painful but that is life.
Don't stress out.
Repeat.
Don't stress out.
We (the future second-years and the MTC staff) will take care of you. We are going through the experience right now. We will give you any wisdom you need that happens to fall our way. We will give you any hugs and support you need. Things will be OK. Trust me. Now take your PRAXIS II and get away from the computer.
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